Rights Group Defends Chastising of U.S.

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Sat, 4 Jun 2005 12:40:53 -0400

Rights Group Defends Chastising of U.S.

 

 

From the New York Times 6.04

Rights Group Defends Chastising of U.S.

 

 

 

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

Published: June 4, 2005

 

LONDON, June 3 - An official of Amnesty International said Friday that

the term gulag in its annual report to describe the United States

prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was chosen deliberately, and she

shrugged off harsh criticism of the report by the Bush administration.

 

The official, Kate Gilmore, the group's executive deputy secretary

general, said the administration's response was " typical of a

government on the defensive, " and she drew parallels to the reactions

of the former Soviet Union, Libya and Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini,

when those governments were accused of human rights abuses.

 

The report, released May 25, placed the United States at the heart of

its list of human rights offenders, citing indefinite detentions of

prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and

secret renditions of prisoners to countries that practice torture. But

it is the use of the word gulag, a reference to the complex of labor

camps where Stalin sent thousands of dissidents, that has drawn the

most attention.

 

President Bush called the report " absurd " several times, and said it

was the product of people who " hate America. " Vice President Dick

Cheney told CNN that he was " offended " by the use of the term and that

he did not take the organization " seriously. " And Defense Secretary

Donald H. Rumsfeld called the comparison " reprehensible. "

 

Amnesty has fired right back, pointing out that the administration

often cites its reports when that suits its purposes. " If our reports

are so 'absurd,' why did the administration repeatedly cite our

findings about Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war? " wrote William F.

Schultz, executive director of the group's United States branch, in a

letter to the editor being published Saturday in The New York Times.

" Why does it welcome our criticisms of Cuba, China and North Korea?

And why does it cite our research in its own annual human rights reports? "

 

In a telephone interview on Friday, Ms. Gilmore, the second-ranking

official in Amnesty, said " gulag " was not meant as a literal

description of Guantánamo but was emblematic of the sense of injustice

and lack of due process surrounding the prison.

 

" The issue of the gulag is about policies and practices, " she said.

" You put people beyond the reach of law, you locate them in facilities

where families can't access them, you deny them access to legal

representation, you attempt to prevent judicial review. "

 

She added, " This creates the likelihood that the people who are there

have nothing to do with criminal conduct or that it is a breach of the

Geneva Convention. "

 

In its 308-page human rights report, Amnesty International pointed to

an " impunity and accountability deficit, " and called on Congress to

conduct " a full and independent investigation of the use of torture

and other human rights abuses by U.S. officials " as a starting point

in " restoring confidence that true justice has no double standards. "

 

Long used to biting criticism, the group said this was the first time

one of its reports had drawn the public wrath of the United States

president and vice president, its secretary of defense, its secretary

of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ms. Gilmore

said the response was telling. " When we see a government at this level

engaging in rhetorical attacks and avoiding dealing with the details

or the facts, " she said, " we interpret that as being a sign that we

are starting to have an impact. "

 

Ms. Gilmore said Amnesty International has been working on

terrorism-related human rights violations for more than two years. It

was a natural progression and a predictable course of action, she

said, to place the United States, a defender of democracy and human

rights, at the forefront of the annual report of human rights violations.

 

The International Committee of the Red Cross, the F.B.I. and United

States courts have criticized the detention policies at Guantánamo

Bay, she said. In addition, Ms. Gilmore said, the detention policy has

been expanded to apply to jails in countries like Egypt, Uzbekistan

and Afghanistan. The creation of an archipelago of detention centers,

she said, was another factor in the choice of the term gulag.

 

There has been no internal discussion about the wisdom of having used

the term and certainly no sense of regret, Ms. Gilmore said, although

the group has found the unrelenting focus on the word, and not the

contents of the report, irritating. " On the other hand, " she added,

" we're getting more airing of our message than we would have otherwise. "